d open one of the
heavy, swinging doors, and cast a glance around; there was no one in
sight, but the gabble of boys' voices in some vestry close by reached
her ear, and a laugh rang after it, which echoed noisily in the quiet
aisles. The high altar was lit up by a light from a side-window and her
eye was arrested by it. Still, whether she saw and heard, or was deaf
and blind, she scarcely knew. Her feet were drawn by some irresistible
attraction towards the grave where her husband was not buried.

She did not know in what corner of the graveyard it was to be found; and
when she entered the small enclosure, with its wooden cross at the head
of every narrow mound, she stood still for a minute or two,
hesitatingly, and looking before her with a bewildered and reluctant
air, as if engaged in an enterprise she recoiled from. A young priest,
the cure of the nearest mountain parish, who visiting the grave of one
of his parishioners lately buried at Engelberg, was passing to and fro
among the grassy mounds with his breviary in his hands, and his lips
moving as if in prayer; but at the unexpected sight of a traveller thus
early in the season, his curiosity was aroused, and he bent his steps
towards her. When he was sufficiently near to catch her wandering eye,
he spoke in a quiet and courteous manner--

"Is madame seeking for any special spot?" he inquired.

"Yes," answered Felicita, fastening upon him her large; sad eyes, which
had dark rings below them, intensifying the mournfulness of their
expression, "I am looking for a grave. The grave of a stranger; Roland
Sefton. I have come from England to find it."

Her voice was constrained and low; and the words came in brief, panting
syllables, which sounded almost like sobs. The black-robed priest looked
closely and scrutinizingly into the pallid face turned towards him,
which was as rigid as marble, except for the gleam of the dark eyes.

"Madame is suffering; she is ill!" he said.

"No, not ill," answered Felicita, in an absent manner, as if she was
speaking in a dream, "but of all women the most miserable."

It seemed to the young cure that the English lady was not aware of what
words she uttered. He felt embarrassed and perplexed: all the English
were heretics, and how heretics could be comforted or counselled he did
not know. But the dreamy sadness of her face appealed to his compassion.
The only thing he could do for her was to guide her to the grave she
was seeking.